Mixed Emotions For Al Harthy At Rockingham

Omani racer Ahmad Al Harthy had a mixed bag of results during the latest rounds of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship at Rockingham, the Pro-Am1 frontrunner picking up his ninth class podium of the season after an unfortunate DNF in race one.

A tough qualifying session on Saturday saw Al Harthy unable to extract the speed he expected from his Oman Air Racing Team prepared Porsche 911 GT3, leaving him fifth in class for the opener and an improved fourth on the grid for the second race.

The Oman Air, Nawras, National Bank of Oman, Brand Oman, Oman Ministry of Sports Affairs and Oman Ministry of Tourism-backed driver made a good start to move up to fourth in class early on in race two. He pushed for a podium place throughout the race but was unable to get ahead of Derek Pierce, leaving him at threat from Alex Martin behind. On Lap 15, contact from Martin sent Al Harthy off and into retirement.

The 30 year old bounced back in race two though, a blistering start seeing him rise to second in class through turn one. He held the place for the opening couple of laps before a moment on lap three enabled Pierce to sneak by. Al Harthy managed to resist pressure from a three car train behind to bring his car home and take the podium.

Al Harthy commented:“In both races I had great starts. The second race was all about damage limitation into the first hairpin and the approach worked well, I came out of there second in Pro-Am 1 and all looked good. Unfortunately, a couple of laps later, I ran slightly wide so slipped to third but then something in the car seemed to change so I had to adapt to that.

“I'm really happy to have ended the day on the podium again, two weekends in a row we've had podiums and our race pace is definitely there. Only a small error with the set-up lost us some time in race two, overall I'm delighted as on the podium is exactly where we should be.”